Reviews of books

Michigan. The aim of the conference was to foster a larger conversation on the topic of war and its impact between scholars, the military and especially the veteran community. In order to do this, aside from traditional paper presentations, the organizers also invited the ‘Theater of War’ production company which stages dramatic readings of ancient tragedies; in this case, it presented Sophocles’ Ajax and Philoctetes. The ensuing conversation between both parties –scholarly and veteran (including military families) – is reflected in the beautifully written epilogue. The introduction makes all this clear and offers a very good summary of what one will find in the book. The book is divided into three parts: the first analyses ancient evidence in light of modern concerns, the second part turns the question around and analyses modern conflict in light of the ancient evidence and the last part includes largely receptions of war (films, poems). Since, in my opinion, there are no highly problematic contributions in this book, I will limit myself to what I consider to be the most successful essays. Hans van Wees’ chapter on genocide in Archaic and Classical Greece merits special mention. It analyses the complexity of the word ‘genocide’ in an ancient context and tries to map actions that the ancient Greeks carried out in (and usually after) war that would fall today under the UN’s definition of the concept. For instance, the post-war selling of a defeated population (commonly women and children) into slavery, van Wees argues, ‘must also count as a form of genocide’ (20). Particular attention is given to the concept of anastasis (‘raising up’), and, staying true to ancient vocabulary, van Wees avoids imposing any modern term for this concept. The author convincingly argues that genocide took place in ancient Greek warfare and that it is only by recognizing and acknowledging this that we can move on to answer the question of why it happened in the first place. After analysing different outcomes (thus showing the alternatives to genocide) van Wees shows that genocide was perpetrated as a form of punishment and against those who contested power. Sara Monoson’s chapter on Socrates’ military service focuses on the concept of ‘endurance’ (including physical and psychological endurance) and how it is associated with Socrates’ military exploits by different ancient authors. Although Xenophon’s and Aristophanes’ representations of Socrates are considered, much emphasis is placed on Plato’s representation of the philosopher. 238

Michigan. The aim of the conference was to foster a larger conversation on the topic of war and its impact between scholars, the military and especially the veteran community. In order to do this, aside from traditional paper presentations, the organizers also invited the 'Theater of War' production company which stages dramatic readings of ancient tragedies; in this case, it presented Sophocles' Ajax and Philoctetes. The ensuing conversation between both parties -scholarly and veteran (including military families) -is reflected in the beautifully written epilogue. The introduction makes all this clear and offers a very good summary of what one will find in the book.
The book is divided into three parts: the first analyses ancient evidence in light of modern concerns, the second part turns the question around and analyses modern conflict in light of the ancient evidence and the last part includes largely receptions of war (films, poems). Since, in my opinion, there are no highly problematic contributions in this book, I will limit myself to what I consider to be the most successful essays.
Hans van Wees' chapter on genocide in Archaic and Classical Greece merits special mention. It analyses the complexity of the word 'genocide' in an ancient context and tries to map actions that the ancient Greeks carried out in (and usually after) war that would fall today under the UN's definition of the concept. For instance, the post-war selling of a defeated population (commonly women and children) into slavery, van Wees argues, 'must also count as a form of genocide' (20). Particular attention is given to the concept of anastasis ('raising up'), and, staying true to ancient vocabulary, van Wees avoids imposing any modern term for this concept. The author convincingly argues that genocide took place in ancient Greek warfare and that it is only by recognizing and acknowledging this that we can move on to answer the question of why it happened in the first place. After analysing different outcomes (thus showing the alternatives to genocide) van Wees shows that genocide was perpetrated as a form of punishment and against those who contested power.
Sara Monoson's chapter on Socrates' military service focuses on the concept of 'endurance' (including physical and psychological endurance) and how it is associated with Socrates' military exploits by different ancient authors. Although Xenophon's and Aristophanes' representations of Socrates are considered, much emphasis is placed on Plato's representation of the philosopher.

238
Monoson examines Socrates' reported behaviour at the siege of Potidaea, at the Battle of Delium and in the expedition to Amphipolis in order to present a different and overlooked aspect of Socrates' life, namely his military activity. What one takes away from this chapter is that, even in Socrates' military activities, we are ultimately dealing with representations.
Moving away from the individual and into the community at large, Arlene W. Saxonhouse presents the reader with significant questions, still relevant in political science today. Who is responsible for deciding to go to war? Where does political responsibility lie? Is it with the leaders or the people: with those who lead or those who are being led? In order to address these issues, Saxonhouse investigates Thucydides' account of the Mytilenian Debate. Her chapter reflects on today's democratic institutions and the role of the citizen in them. Peter Meineck's essay on combat trauma and the tragic stage complements well Saxonhouse's arguments on democratic concerns. One illuminating example is that of Agamemnon facing the prospect of sacrificing his own daughter. The decision Agamemnon faces is between the greater good and personal motives. Should he kill his daughter to ensure success at Troy or prioritize his personal emotions to save her life? This evokes Saxonhouse's arguments on the demos and the individual leader.
The reader will find here essays that are unique in scholarship about the ancient world. The book explores new questions and new approaches on a very contemporary topic. The individuals and communities of antiquity that our ancient authors write about are long gone, but their wartime experiences remain with us today. Ultimately Traces of the Past is concerned with the interplay of 'words' and 'things' in the creation of the Past.
In the introduction Bassi coins the term 'proto-LITERATURE archaeological' for narratives 'in which the past is constituted out of or in response to what is visible (or not) in the present'. This is characterized by a competition between the possibility of seeing the past and reading about it, and a competition between preserving the past and its susceptibility to decay (2). These narratives can navigate the conflict between empirical observation and linguistic representation (7). For Bassi, visuality is key. Bassi further explores the definition of a 'protoarchaeological' narrative by applying the concept to five texts, treated individually. Chapter 1 explores Hesiod's Theogony through the use of objects as indicators to past events or real time. The laurel sceptre given to Hesiod by the Muses is a symbolic mark of his office as a divinely inspired singer, denoting the reality of his divine experience. The anvil (akmon) brings the measurement of human time to the divine timeless world. With Cronus' stone, time in and external to the text loses its linear quality; the Titans are called former gods, referring to a future yet to happen within the text.
Chapter 2 turns to the Iliad and the destruction of the Achaean wall in the hypothetical future of the past (in the present of the poem it is still standing). The wall's total destruction by Poseidon is a reflection of the kleos logos in the epic: destruction leads to everlasting fame. Bassi also argues that the historicity of the wall has impacted upon scholarly approaches to it, starting with Strabo's incredulity at the lateness of its building and the Trojans' failure to conqueror the camp before then.
Chapter 3 discusses the contrast in the Odyssey between Odysseus, 'the eyewitness' who recounts his tale 'as-if' he was a singer, and the blind, divinely inspired singer who recounts events 'asif' he had seen them. Bassi uses this contrast to explore visuality and visual verification of past events, drawing on the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships and Teichoscopia to consider other 'as-if' statements and perceptions of the reliability of divinely inspired (or not) narrators.
In chapter 4 the visual verification of past events is expanded upon. Bassi considers the authority of the author, exploring whether 'seeing' and 'reporting that which has been seen' gives Herodotus more validity. The stories surrounding Croesus' dedications at Greek sanctuaries are interpreted as representations of the general ethical logos of the Histories, and the story of Croesus' fortunes especially, with its messages of 239 the changeability and fragility of human prosperity (eudaimonia). Both are subject to decay over time and at risk of fading into the past.
Finally, chapter 5 focuses on the conflict between empirical or visual observation and its linguistic representation in constituting the past. Within a discussion of the extent of literacy and reading in ancient Greece, Bassi asks the bigger question of how tragic plays where known and remembered, if indeed they were. In Aristophanes' Frogs, tragedy is reduced to words, an effect created by Dionysos' desire for tragedy (a visual object of the past) laid in contrast to reading a tragedy (text in the present): visualization versus textualization. The author suggests that Aristophanes views tragedy as a dead medium, pointing to the recurring use of funerary-context objects within the play as a visual representation of this statement, and argues that Aristophanes displays an ambivalence towards tragedy's moralizing role in society stemming from its lack of coherent moral message.
Standing in place of a conclusion, the epilogue offers a contrast to the chapters' close philological readings of texts. Bassi returns to the principal concept of the book and considers its implications for postprocessual archaeological theory. Examining the competition between empirical observation and linguistic representation, Bassi highlights that postprocessualism seeks (1) to access 'things as things' by removing the 'linguistic layers' (in search of the materiality of objects), and in doing so assumes the existence of meaning outside of interpretation, and (2) is suspicious of language as a study of the unempirical while defining itself in opposition to its empirical processual forbearers. The phrase 'reading the past' is a symptom of the struggle between the demands of positivism and the desire for narrative coherence. Bassi concludes that the negotiation between words and things is part of the human past, suggesting 'protoarchaeological' narratives prefigure the temporal, epistemological and ontological aspects of archaeology as a discipline, pointing to the 'past itself' as a creation of the interplay between the 'unbridgeable gap of empirical observation and linguistic representation' (201).
Bassi successfully traces the transformation of objects into narratives through a selection of Greek texts, with each textual examination yielding complex analysis of the creation of the Past as a concept. While illustrating that 'protoarchaeological' narratives are present across literary genres, the choice of texts is broad and their relationships ambiguous. The effect of intertextual objects to amplify key messages, or comedic punchlines, links the Frogs, the Lydian logos and the Achaean wall. In the Theogony, by contrast, they indicate time rather than morality. The Odyssey has no intertextual objects, but does raise the issue of the authority of the author that is explored further in the Lydian logos. The examples illustrate the breadth of Bassi's topic, developing the different strands, but they are also self-standing analyses, related by her term rather than because of the insights they yield for each other. Nonetheless, this interesting book opens up ways of approaching intertextual objects and the creation of the Past; it remains to be seen whether other people will explore narratives in 'protoarchaeological' terms.  [2007][2008], incorporating various updates since the original publication, we now possess in English a major general monograph that stands as a milestone in the study of the economic history of antiquity. The distillate of decades of learning, some of them conducted in the shadow of the 'New Orthodoxy', Bresson's work presents a very different vision of the ancient Greek economy from that which came before. The book's subtitle hints at its general tenor. First, institutions: like many recent works on Greek economic history, Bresson views the New Institutional Economics (NIE) of Douglass North and others as the required tool for clearing the logjam of the formalist-substantivist debate. By relaxing some of the rigid aspects of formalism and by paying attention to historically specific features of economies, viz. institutions, this approach clears away many of the problems that stalled progress during the past few decades. Second, markets: Bresson presents a view of the economy in which markets play a key role, from local and regional markets to transregional markets and maritime trade. Third, growth: like I. Morris and others, Bresson depicts an economy that waxes in the longue durée of ca. 800-300 BC, not just keeping step with population growth, but also growing in what might be called 'per-capita' terms. In comparison with the stagnant, largely subsistence-based view of the economy presented by Finley, Bresson presents a more dynamic, upbeat vision in which the agricultural world emerges fully enmeshed with the world of markets and trade.

KATE CARAWAY
The book's contents follow the scheme of the earlier French volumes. A useful introductory survey of the history of debates on the Greek economy is followed by part 1, which deals with economic structures and production. This discusses ecology, topography, climate and demography; the subject of energy prompts a clever digression into the old question of why the Greeks never made the leap from Hero's steam engine to Stephenson's Rocket (among other things, the absence of northern-European fossil fuels is enlisted as a key factor). The rest of part 1 discusses transport, land tenure, agriculture, fishing, artisans and finally the questions of growth and the so-called 'failure' of ancient civilization. Part 2 deals with markets and trade. It proceeds by discussing private property and legal enforcement, the world of the agora, prices and civic institutions regarding markets, coinage, foreign trade, taxes, the emporion and deigma, commercial courts and the world of interstate commerce.
One of the great strengths of the book is its empiricism and attention to fine detail. Economic history can breed mistrust among some classicists of a traditional, philological bent, a problem compounded by a large associated body of arcane sociological and economic theory. In Bresson, though, trained as a philologist and epigraphist, we see the empiricist historian working at the coalface; and the 80-odd pages of endnotes illustrate his intimate acquaintance with a vast array of evidence (including epigraphy, largely ignored by